Television in Mexico

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Television is a popular form of entertainment in Mexico, with mass entertainment playing an important role in creating a national, unified culture.^[2] The telenovelas are very traditional in Mexico and are translated to many languages and seen all over the world with renowned names like Lucero, Thalía, Verónica Castro, Itati, Leticia Calderón and Victoria Ruffo.

Network television

There are three major television companies in Mexico that own the primary networks and broadcast covering all nation,

is another media conglomerate with Spanish-language broadcasting in Mexico, Costa Rica and the United States.

Televisa, founded in 1955, is the largest media company in the Spanish-speaking world and produces a wide range of programming, including telenovelas (soap operas), variety shows, sports, and news. TV Azteca, established in 1993, is the second-largest television network in Mexico and offers a diverse lineup of programming, including telenovelas, reality shows, and sports.

Televisa owns the

networks.

There are also several other commercial networks with less than 75% national reach. Chief among these are Televisa's

Multimedios Televisión

, which broadcasts mostly in northeastern Mexico.

Noncommercially,

. As SPR's national transmitter network complements that of Canal Once, almost all of its stations also retransmit that network.

Television genres

Telenovelas

TVyNovelas Awards

than any other actress.

Mexico is one of the first countries in the world to be known for producing telenovelas aimed at shaping national social behavior – one issue of which is on family planning during the 1970s. The Mexican model of telenovelas (soap opera) – then to be replicated by other telenovela-producing countries in Latin America and Asia for most of the 1990s – usually involves a romantic couple that encounters many problems throughout the show's run, a villain and usually ends with a wedding. One common ending archetype, consists of a wedding, and with the villain dying, going to jail, becoming permanently injured or disabled, or losing his/her mind. The use of sexually themed episodes starring the leading couple of the story has been a common element through most Mexican (and even Latin American) telenovelas. Senda prohibida was the first telenovela produced in Mexico.^[4][5] It was produced by Telesistema Mexicano and broadcast June 12, 1958, from Monday to Friday.^[5]

that had been broadcast worldwide in the same period.

During the peak of the global success of Latin American telenovelas in the 1990s and 2000s, several prominent Mexican actors and actresses gained huge following for the telenovelas that they starred and which were viewed in the mentioned regions. For example,

, converting her into one of the world's foremost television icons, as her telenovelas were broadcast in Mexico and more than 180 other countries to almost 2 billion viewers worldwide, earning the all-time highest television ratings both in Mexico and other regions.

Due to the international success of the telenovelas broadcast in and out of Mexico, by the late 1990s, the company claimed that telenovelas were Mexico's leading export product. Many consider the period from 1958 to 2004 to be Televisa's

television and unlicensed copying, the television companies opted to adapt stories from Argentina, Colombia and Brazil. These used veteran actors in order to decrease expenses.

On November 21, 2016, Televisa released a telenovela titled La candidata (The Candidate) protagonized by actress Silvia Navarro as Regina Bárcenas (whom acts as the speculated fictional stand-in for Margarita Zavala) and Rafael Sánchez Navarro as her husband Alonso San Roman (which acts as the speculated fictional stand-in for Felipe Calderón). It is heavily speculated this television program, was created in order to favor Zavala in the 2018 elections against MORENA's political candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador whom Televisa did not want as president due to his leftist political points of view.^[7][8]

Television sitcoms

.

Political satire

Several Mexican broadcast television programs since the 1990s have engaged in political satire. According to critics, both the potentials and the pitfalls of Mexican television satire may be exemplified by El Privilegio de Mandar, a political comedy telenovela accused of being biased in favor of the governing party's candidate in the context of the 2006 Mexican general election,^[10] and by Víctor Trujillo, a comedian and news host famous for his black humor and for his attacks on politicians.^[11]

History

Television in Mexico first began on August 19, 1946, in Mexico City when Guillermo González Camarena transmitted the first television signal in Latin America from the bathroom of his home. On September 7, 1946, at 8:30 PM (CST) Mexico's and Latin America's first experimental television station was established and was given the XE1GC callsign. This experimental station broadcast an artistic program and interviews on Saturdays for two years.^[12]

Mexico's first commercial station,

channel 11 signed on, the base of today's Canal Once network and the first educational television station in Latin America.

Broadcast expansion

With the exception of the short-lived but popular

.

This time period also saw the development of the first television networks run by state governments, including

. 25 of Mexico's 32 federal entities currently boast state networks.

Cable television

The first cable system started to operate in the early 1960s in Monterrey, as a CATV service (an antenna at the top of the Loma Larga, which could get TV signals from Laredo, Texas and the Rio Grande Valley). Most of the other major cities didn't develop cable systems until the late 1980s, due to government censorship. By 1989, the industry had had a major impulse with the founding of Multivisión—a MMDS system who started to develop its own channels in Spanish—and the later development of companies such as Cablemás and Megacable.

Over the past few years, many US networks have started to develop content for the Latin American market, such as

and Grupo HEVI.

Digital television

Televisa once conducted six weeks of experimental HDTV broadcasts in 1992, in collaboration with Japanese public broadcaster NHK and under the direction of Director of High Technology Projects Leonardo Ramos Mateos^[16] on the basis that Televisa would adopt the latter's MUSE analog high-definition system, branded in Japan as Hi-Vision. The Mexican broadcast conglomerate wanted to develop a dedicated pay-per-view network using the Japanese broadcast standard that would offer first-run Hollywood movies to prospective local owners of MUSE Hi-Vision equipment, which was known to cost upwards of US$30,000 at the time in Japan, as consumer equipment availability was in its infancy and low manufacturing volumes contributed to its high cost.

At this time in the nation's history, Mexico was also one of the slowest international markets to screen Hollywood films in cinemas, typically screening major releases up to 18 months after their initial premiere in the United States due to government interference and censorship. The impetus behind the test and the development of the premium pay-per-view network was for Televisa to investigate purchasing the rights to major Hollywood releases and broadcast them over the small-scale network as close to their US premiere as possible, with a variable fee depending on film.

The high cost of the home audio and video equipment, namely widescreen format televisions and audio/video receivers would have limited the service and the equipment to the wealthiest neighborhoods in Mexico City, and representatives from Televisa were quick to acknowledge this, stating that the wealthy would have been willing to purchase the equipment, not just for personal use in their homes, but as a way to form social clubs with friends and neighbors, suggesting that equipment owners and established social clubs would charge for the privilege of seeing a first-run Hollywood film and defray the costs of the equipment and film rental.

After the six-week trial ended, Televisa instead decided to end further development of the initiative, with an aborted attempt being made to involve U.S.-based electronics manufacturer Scientific Atlanta in a bid to lower equipment manufacturing and import costs. The trial ended without further development due to the unique topography and mix of building construction types in Mexico City affecting the reliability of the test signal being broadcast from a temporary broadcast site on the Pico Tres Padres mountain peak with high-rise buildings around the peak affecting reception.^[17]

Enrique Pena Nieto

.

Following the aborted Japanese HDTV tests, the digital television transition that began in the early 2000s saw the Mexican government allow Televisa to test multiple digital television systems in Mexico City starting in 2002, with the broadcast conglomerate testing the US-developed

Delays in the digital television switchover continued due to legal concerns and the telecommunications reform of 2013–14 enacted by President Enrique Peña Nieto required entirely new legislation in the sector and created the new Federal Telecommunications Institute as a result. However, the digital television switchover resumed in 2015 when Reynosa/Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo switched off analog broadcasts on January 13, the first of ten dates that year in which stations in various regions of the country shut off analog television transmission. By December 31, all high-power stations had shut off analog broadcasts, with some 500 low-power analog stations remaining in service for an additional year due to the financial difficulties encountered by public broadcasters in transitioning to digital broadcasting and the continued existence of analog repeater stations unprepared for digital television broadcasts.

Cable channels

• Tiin – Airs children's and teens' series and movies.
• De Película – Mexican cinema from the Golden Era. Available in Mexico, Latin America, United States, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
• TeleHit – Hit Music Network. Mexico and U.S.
• Tlnovelas – Televisa's most famous soap operas. Pan American, European and Australian Versions.
• Unicable – Univision and low-cost productions.
• TVC – Magazine Network. Available in all Mexican states except
  DF
  . Produced by major cable-system operator PCTV.
• Platino – B-Movies.

Most viewed channels

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Position	Channel	Share of total viewing (%)
1	Las Estrellas	14.1
2	Azteca 7	12.8
3	Canal 5	8.1
4	Azteca Uno	5.6
5	Imagen Televisión	2.5
6	Nu9ve	2.1
7	ADN 40	1.9
8	Canal 6	1.6
9	FOROtv	1.2
10	a+	1.0

See also

• Televisa
• Televisión Azteca
• Imagen Televisión
• Jacobo Zabludovsky
• Javier Alatorre
• Joaquín López Dóriga
• Carlos Loret de Mola
• Ciro Gómez Leyva
• Chespirito
• Eugenio Derbez
• List of television stations in Mexico
• List of Mexican television networks

References

Further reading

• Mejía Barquera, Fernando. La industria de la radio y televisión y la política del estado mexicano (1920-1960). Mexico City: Fundación Manuel Buendía 1989.
• Saragoza, Alex M. "Television." Encyclopedia of Mexico. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997, pp. 1397-1400.
• Trejo Delarbre, Raúl, ed. Televisa: El quinto poder. Mexico City: Claves Latinoamerianas 1985.

External links

• Official Mexican TDT portal